Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote: > On donderdag, mei 29, 2003, at 21:34 Europe/Amsterdam, Tony > Hain wrote: > > > The fundamental legal issue we need to deal with is the ability to > > absolutely identify the originator of the mail. Is that > precluded by > > any existing privacy laws? If not, identity would provide > the means to > > pursue financial recourse for wasted time and resources. If > so, we have > > a non-technical issue that may prevent any solution. > > Too bad the bad ideas get much more air time than the good ones. > Yesterday some really good points were brought up, today we're mostly > rehashing the bad stuff. > > About the law: current laws are unable to keep spam in check. I was not asking about spam law. I was trying to be specific about any privacy laws that would prevent identification of the originator of a message. As long as there is a legal way to undeniably trace the message origin, there is a chance we can build a technical approach to bulk message handling system that will end random spam. > ... > The real question is whether the current protocols > exhibit flaws that make the spam problem worse than it would > be without > those flaws; and whether improved protocols can be implemented and > deployed at reasonable levels of effectiveness and efficiency. I would argue yes, in that it is impossible to nail down the originator with the current system. > > It seems the answer to this was "no" five or six years ago. > In the mean > time, many things have changed. We now have more advanced techniques > and more processing power at our disposal. Also, spamming in general > has become much worse and many more children are online now, who are > subjected to spam that isn't always "child friendly" to say > the least. > Maybe the answer is still "no" but the time is right to at least > revisit the question. > I agree. Tony